I'm being prayed for...again

I'm attending beauty school this fall and during my registration I met a really cool girl (and quite a talented braider). I invited her over my house and we immediately clicked and began talking and joking like old friends. The conversation veered into the different clubs we'd been to in the area and our favorite drinks. I was having a great time. Ever since I came out as an atheist I haven't had much of a chance to be my usual extroverted self. It's hard to be an extrovert when your friends think you worship the devil :).

Then the bomb dropped. She went off in an anti-gay rant and quoted "god's word" to reinforce her ideas. I could understand if homosexuality made her uncomfortable but she really went the hell off. I steered the conversation back to other subjects and we discovered that we had a mutual (christian) friend. She says "Oh you know D? I'm the leader of her youth group at our church! You should come with me next Sunday". I said I'd be interested in going but then I told her under no uncertain terms that I am an atheist. The look on her face was a heinous mixture of disgust, anger, incredulity, and most of all fear. She left five minutes later because some supposed family obligation. Before she left she looks me dead in the eyes and says "Jesus loves you. You only need to lay your burdens on the cross to be forgiven. I'll pray for you" to which I replied "If I need forgiveness I ask the people I've wronged for it."

Is this a common experience for anyone else? I constantly feel duped by people. I mean for the first couple of hours we hung out she was talking about clubbing, sex, even strip clubs, then all of the sudden she gets so self-righteous. Would Jesus do that mess?

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When I was a child, before much identity had settled in- while under the watchful eyes of my parents I got sent to ye old Christian Doctrine school. Likely all of those points your Christian associate blurbed out were installed pre-self identity as well. Mines well laid waiting to blow up any association with the uninitiated.
I was listening to 2 orthodox clergy one day and it came down to them calling atheists " clueless for having been raised without a God."
So, if it's any indication - in banter there is an open admission God must be programmed in by the very folks responsible for doing it. But to call the godless clueless shows the clergy seek to interfere with volitional thinking amongst their young & within their (clergy's) sphere of influence. An irreverent states of affairs indeed. Its this kind of false information which corrupts the very data sets used in reasoning.

I have a Jehovah's Witness friend who's been praying for me for years after told him the divine inspiration of the Bible was ganja. I truly believe religion in the black community is a stereotype because looking around I see no evidence that we are better off because of Jesus. In fact, I see just the opposite. I used to get it all the time, but I must admit I'm a militant atheist and fire first and often. Like me for who I am.

I feel you on that. But to tell you the truth in the area I live in militancy would isolate me from every brown person I met. Now I have plenty of friends and family of all races but sometimes I just want to be around people who look like me and share some of my experiences. Sometimes I just want to sit with girfriends who've had the experience of being burnt by a pressing comb :) My partner, Marcus, and I have so much trouble finding other couples to do simple stuff like go bowling with since we came out. Its just kind of lonely. Thankfully, I found the black freethought group on here. Its good to know I'm not alone.

I strongly believe that too many folks in the black community use religion as a crutch and an excuse to shun personal responsibility. If the answer to everything is "God will make a way," or "the Lord will provide," then what incentive does the person have to light a fire under their behind and put forth the effort to make something happen on their own? I remember listening to the Infidel Guy, and one of his shows was about how the church was hurting the black community. He talked about how he used to work in housing/real estate in a black neighborhood, and when he approached people about being late on the rent many of them would give him answers like "we lifted it up in prayer and God will provide for us." That's all well and good, but your rent was due last week and your lights just got turned off. Now what? Then if they do manage to somehow pull through, if someone is kind enough to loan them the money to pay their bills, then they commence to praising Jesus for making a way out of no way. Just crazy and backwards.

Religion is a crutch. Blacks seem to rely on it in the worse way though even though it's probably the biggest handicap of all. It pisses me off how religion robs people of their own self-acknowledged accomplishments by those who say "it was by the grace of god" or some b.s along those lines.

That is no lie. It's very rare to see a non-black person acknowledge God for their accomplishments. They have given up control to "God" so anything positive that happens to them it's God, if it's bad it's the devil or God testing them. That's one fucked up God!

You're safer telling someone you're a child molster rather than aethist. The Black community has held on to religion because they feel hopelessness in their lives and religion gives a fantasy saviour to depend on. Religion provides a crutch to carry them alone but instead of making them stronger it's making them weaker. Just my opinion.

Sara, what you brought home is a run of the mill convenient hypocritical xtian. I run into those fools all of the time. When they try to preach their religion to me I tell them straight up that I am an atheist and I do not care to discuss religion and if they continue to preach to me they'll regret it.

I get the usual I'm going to pray that jesus turns you around and I always say, how can Jesus turn me around when he committed a major sin called suicide? The looks are priceless.